On Saturday, a colleague took me along with her to St. Augustine’s orphanage, another run by Anglican nuns.  It currently houses 17 boys ranging in age from 4 to 17.  The purpose of our trip was to take Christmas presents from children in Belgium, which had been sent in November, but held up in customs until now.  I was told that it took three trips to customs by various people to get the gifts released.

The boys were very excited about the presents.  Most of them contained some sort of colored pencils or a small set of water colors, a small notepad, a couple of matchbox trucks or cars, a small hand puppet or stuffed animal, and maybe a few pieces of candy.   Most of the boys seemed very pleased. 

I was given a tour of the orphanage.  Bedrooms are along two long, dark corridors, and are kept locked during the day.  The boys have very few personal possessions.  They have a play room with an overstuffed couch and chair, but nothing to play with.  They have a TV that isn’t working.  Their meals are cooked over a wood-burning oven in large cast iron pots, and served in a dining room large enough to seat all of them.  I was shown their chicken project.  They have a rooster and a dozen hens, but only one hen is laying, so they get about 6 eggs a week from this.  They also have a pig project.  They have two adult pigs and six piglets that probably weigh 30 lb. apiece.  They hope to raise those piglets to maturity, when their sale would net $200 or so per head for the orphanage.  However, they have already sold four for prices more like $40 per head due to the orphanage needing the money immediately. 

 

On Sunday I went to a beautiful area called Bvumba, which is a few miles outside of Mutare.  It is near the border with Mozambique, and the views were spectacular, but the kind of wide vistas that never look good in photographs.  I saw a zebra feeding by the roadside on the way!  We stopped at a resort near the end of the road called Leopard Rock.  It’s supposed to have the highest golf course in Africa, and one of the best.  We walked around there and saw quite a few samango monkeys, a species found only in a small area near Mutare.  Then we had tea at the resort and drove home.  All you golfers, don't you wish you were here?

I’ve now had one class meeting with each of my public health classes.  There are lots of challenges: finding a room with an LCD setup, given that the expection is that I will have Powerpoint presentations for each class period, providing students with materials (text books are not used) when the internet isn‘t working more often than it is, finding out about faculty meetings and other activities I’m expected for at the very last minute.  On Friday I made contact with the faculty member for the Child and Family Psychology program I’d communicated with before I came, and he’s invited me to co-teach the course in Trauma.  Unlike the students in the MPH program, who are full-time students, the students for this masters’ program all have full-time jobs.  Many of them live in Harare and commute here (about 3 hours) for their classes, which are held on Saturdays and an occasional Friday.  We’ll begin that class 1/28. 

I don’t know when I’ll get this posted.  I just heard the generators come on, which means the electricity is off again.  It’s funny, I don’t bother to turn on the lights during the day, and my notepad continues to run on batteries when the electricity goes off, so unless I’m teaching, I don’t really notice anymore when the electricity goes off.  It happens much more at the university than at my apartment.